Cons of Grass-free Lawn?

I had never really heard of such a thing until coming here, but I mentioned it to my husband and it peeked his interest. He and one of my sons are terribly allergic to grass pollen, so going grassless would be a definite plus. We live out in the country, so we do not feel we need to have a "pretty" lawn. There's already goodly sized patches of clover and dandelion. We have 9 acres, but about 3 is considered "yard". The yard is what we would focus on. The rest gets mowed down for hay by a neighbor. I miss the birds it brings, but with those allergies....

Other pros, I believe would be no need for weed and feed, pesticides etc. No mowing, which would terribly upset a couple boys who really like to mow.

But what are some cons to doing this? I am sure it will take some time to get it done.

We do have terrible ticks around here if we let the grass get too long, so I am wondering will the ticks still be an issue if we get some kind of clover? Are there any perennial ground covers that might be low to the ground? Our winters have gotten down to -28F.

Thank you for your help.

You'll still get weeds, depending on what you do instead of a lawn you may find that you spend more or less time on weed control than you do now. Lawn grass tends to grow more densely than some groundcovers so if it's properly cared for it can do a better job at keeping weeds out. Plus there are special weed killers for use in lawns that will kill the weeds but not the grass, but if you're growing a clover lawn for example and get weeds in it, any weedkiller you use on it will also kill your clover. I've got gravel instead of a lawn, so I just toss down some Preen during the rainy season when the weeds are sprouting and that works pretty well.

I also wouldn't expect miracles on your family's allergies...if you're currently keeping the grass in this area mowed, then it's not flowering and producing pollen so the grass pollen that's triggering their allergies is coming from somewhere else (like the 6 acres the neighbor cuts for hay, or other neighbor's properties, nearby fields, etc). Even if you're letting that 3 acres of grass get long and flower, it'll help a bit to get rid of it but there's still going to be plenty of pollen around that you have no control over so I expect they'll still have allergies. It certainly won't hurt their allergies to get rid of the grass, but it's a lot of work to replace 3 acres of grass with something else so I'd only do it if you have some other reasons besides allergy control.

As far as birds--you can plant trees/shrubs/etc that the birds will like more than grass, so you shouldn't have to worry about missing out on them. Plant some shrubs that make berries, some flowers that make yummy seeds, and you'll have tons of birds before you know it!

I have Dutch white clover and crimson clover growing in patches of my yard where grass doesn't do well. It gets mowed along with the st. augustine. Some clover is perrenial and some are annual. Blue-eye grass is also common around here. It's not really a grass but a lily.

I think ecrane is correct about the pollen.

Thanks for your comments. We knew this wasn't going to be a cure-all for the allergies. We'd have to move out of the country. Or into a dessert climate. We thought it might help some not to have to play or walk around in it. We are hoping to avoid any weedkiller, if possible. The chemical kind, but I have willing hands who like it when I say I'll pay so much per thistle if they dig them up. I didn't think about the denseness of grass versus clover and that we might get more undesirables.

Oh, the birds I was referring to are the meadow birds: Bobolinks, Meadowlarks, etc. We've been busy planting various things to draw other birds.

I did a search to see about the blue-eye grass. I'll have to do more research, but I wonder if we could have a small section of that. The flowers, though small, are very pretty.

On the allergies--if it's the pollen they're allergic to, walking around on a lawn that gets mowed isn't going to trigger allergies because a mowed lawn never gets to the point of flowering, and it's the flowers that have the pollen. But, I know if I sit down on grass for too long I'll sometimes get a mild case of hives, so if they have that problem too then removing the grass would obviously help with that. Won't do anything for sneezing, etc though (I speak from experience on this--I have no lawn but get killed by grass allergies every spring because of grasses in nearby fields, etc)

If you want to look at various groundcovers, here's a nice website where you can put in your zone, amt of sun/shade, amt of foot traffic, etc and it'll recommend groundcovers that would work for you. Most of the things they sell should be available at your local nurseries so you can probably get them there cheaper than you could from the website. http://www.stepables.com/3/find_the_right_plant_for_your_area.html